Slumping is wrong, so I should sit up straight, right? Well – no…
At Bodyfit Physio we believe ‘good posture’ is an efficient posture.
An efficient posture balances your body parts one on top of another, engaging your core, but using a minimum of muscular activity, so that your back and shoulders can remain relaxed.
Efficient sitting can feel like you are sitting on something solid because the deep core muscles of the low back are active. The muscles at the back of your lower ribs should remain relaxed, with the ribs at the front pointing down, rather than forward.
Have someone take a picture of you from the side and see if your head is over the top of your sitbones. If your shoulders feel slumped, you could softly open the front of your chest to activate your shoulder stabilisers.
A new posture will feel strange initially. Whichever position we usually sit in, our brain classifies as straight, so any new position will feel ‘not straight’, or even slumped because you are using less energy. You should start practising sitting once you feel like you have achieved a balanced position.
We recommend sustaining the new position for 30 seconds (or less if that is too hard).
Repeat this 3 times and do it 3 times / day. This is long enough for your brain to know it is important, and frequent enough to begin to form a new picture of what straight it.